Multiplayer games reward you when you kill people/win/whatever giving you positive reinforcement of whatever it was you did to kill people/win/etc. Most people relish the challenge of competing with their opponents, making the rewards they get even more compelling. However, some people don't connect winning with overcoming challenges and are just as happy to get that victory reward by circumventing the rules of the rest of the game. The still get the same positive reinforcement that we get, so rather than shaping their gaming skills they shape their cheating skills.

Unfortunately, in games, at school, at work, in life, some people just enjoy ruining everyone else's fun.

I was in a game of GRID last night, racing F1000s on a ranked server. All of a sudden, one car turned into a touring car that had infinite grip and speed. Oh and the ability to jump 100 feet directly into the air. He proceeded to demolish everyone else's fragile car until he was the only one left.

Cheaters only cheat themselves I used to play Americas Army all the time got very good at it too then got booted off a few servers as they did not like getting beat saying im using aimbot never heard of that b4 then.

Modern Warfare 2 is an example of how a game can enable cheaters. There's no repercussions there's several wall hacks and things that are not vac detectable such as texture replacements and such so with no admins or kick votes and a steady stream of new unsuspecting victims they can't be stopped. I have been playing online deathmatches since the Quake wireplay days and have not encountered as many cheaters in that whole time as I have in less than a year with MW2.

Obviously the game isn't entirely to blame but it attracts cheaters more than most and as Stoney said they get their positive feedback from the game same as the genuinely good players. Thankfully the Server admin tool for MW2 is helping some of us take back the power and get rid of cheaters or atleast the obvious ones.

It's a bigger issue than 1 game though of course and I guess the reasons are the same as they are any where else. Some people just need attention even if it's negative they need to feel like they are good at something I don't know really because I suck most of the time.

I think cheaters aim isnt to "win" the game, but is more to piss everyone else right off. Kinda the same way where I was on a MP racing game, and some idiot started to flame me, then the regulars of the server joined in. I turned round and proceeded to drive the course backwards crashing into anyone I could find, just to piss them off.
I would never cheat in MP games, my main aim of shooters and strat games is to win by skill, and sometimes in SC2, cheese play.
I have been accused of cheating before, but since I wasnt, then it made me a little happier to think that people thougth I was as good as an autoaim bot.

However, I basically quit MW2 because of the amount of cheaters, and the fact you couldnt kick anyone from MW2 servers.

I have hated cheaters since the early CS days when I was admin of some Demon Games CS servers, it sure was fun being able to get rid of cheaters or even teleport their characters to rooms with no doors and only goatse pictuers on the walls.

I don't even want to get into this one as I might just start swearing. I wish I could get there ip addresses and do something about it as they ruin it for so many people or even just totally ban the ip's from all games or something

People cheat in Modern Warfare 2 because they can. There are no repercussions for cheating, and while you can be detected, a lot of people just buy cheap game serials and put them on a new account every time they get banned; they're away from the game for half a day once VAC's done its job, if you're lucky.

Meanwhile, the hacks are becoming so advanced that it is literally possible to corrupt the profiles of any other users who join your game, causing their HUD to be scrambled, their stats to be ruined, all guns but the defaults to be locked out, etc. It's not just simple aimbots and wallhacks anymore, which are bad enough to begin with. The simple fact is that Infinity Ward is nearly dead and Activision have no intent of ever fixing the situation, instead simply betting that players will buy the next game and move on. I implore everyone here to not do such a thing.

People cheat because it gives them a sense of power and satisifaction, killing others in an outlandish, complete, and richer way.

Its fun, funny, empowering and satisifiying.

If I could press a button to remove all cheating from all games I would press it, but cheating is as much a part of normal life as it is in gaming, so why remove an aspect of reality from unreality, just because the normal rules of play are being broken.

Go and ask insider traders if they like cheating, or con men.

Cheating is human nature, your all being untrue in your apprasial of this aspect of online gaming.

This is exactly why I prefer to game on my Xbox 360. Yes you still get people cheating but nothing like as much as on PC. You've also got a much more level playing field if you prefer to use a controller.

I'm probably gonna get flamed for those comments but hey, it's just my personal preference/opinion.

I'll give you my aim bot and porn spray when you take it from my cold, dead hands.

lol thats it though isn`t it....it`s the desire to become competitive or just plain outta site at a game without the need to actually be good at it.
I dont know why they dont just get an AI scripted bot and turn it upto ultra and not even take part.... `cause that`d be fun.

This is exactly why I prefer to game on my Xbox 360. Yes you still get people cheating but nothing like as much as on PC. You've also got a much more level playing field if you prefer to use a controller.

I'm probably gonna get flamed for those comments but hey, it's just my personal preference/opinion.

Cheating on a console tends to be a completely different thing to cheating on a PC. PC cheats are predominately hacks and mods, whereas a console cheat is along the lines of offering yourself self up to another player to boost kills (think Nuke Boosting
in MW2).
PC cheats, such as they are, is why I rarely pay multiplayer against people I don't know.

Multiplayer game which has almost no competitive aspect because everyone works together against NPCs? No cheaters.

Of course, that's not entirely true. I've heard/seen first hand reports of servers which will permanently increase one's perks to max level, yet that only brings a person up to the highest level they could legitimately be. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a Killing Floor wall hack or aim bot.

Cheaters just want to feel powerful, be it through winning, or ruining others' experience, or making people rage, or what-have-you. As long as there are people with low self-esteem playing games, there will be cheaters.